Even before we got engaged, I knew our ‘honeymoon’ would be in the Basque Country. It’s been a self-fulfilling prophecy of sorts (I proposed with a Basque cheesecake, for instance1), fueled by our love of virtually every Basque dish and ingredient we’ve ever tasted. When the fateful day was finally upon us — off season, of course — I felt peculiarly unprepared.
Historically, I had been drawn to the area as a special occasion trip for its culinary accolades, and imagined an itinerary riddled with luxurious meals at Mugaritz, Azurmendi, Arzak… the type you’ve seen on a Netflix special or two. At present, I struggle to imagine a less appealing trip. My relationship with dining, fine or otherwise, has shifted in recent years…. I think both myself and the nature of the beast have changed significantly. It’s not a loss of a particular appetite I mourn — it’s never been more enjoyable to celebrate food, the people who make/eat it, and the evolving culture it represents. I could write a lengthy and annoying post on this topic, it’s almost certain that I will at some point, but you can imagine how closely this correlates with my move to Portland.
But I digress. Splitting time between Donostia and Bilbo2 with a few stops on the short drive between the two, we started our extremely long pilgrimage (TWO layovers??) with a few hotel reservations, some hastily pinned places on our map, European eSims, a hope, and a dream. Fortunately, the region was very kind to us, and a marathon of dazed bar hopping lived up to my unreasonable expectations.
What we ate
Warning: verbose food journal with absolutely horrendous low light photography incoming, do not judge these institutions for my shortcomings.
Our daily txikiteo (pintxos tour) mostly revolved around the abundant amount of seafood the region has to offer. The idea is to grab two or three things on any given menu and keep moving, restraint and abundance, truly one of my favorite ways to eat3. Here are a few standouts that have stuck with me since the end of the trip.
We had heard of Casa Vallés because it claims to be the birthplace of the gilda, one of the most iconic, recognizable and reproduced pintxos. But by far one of my favorite bites all trip was this pintxo with anchovies two ways — oil cured and boquerones (vinegar marinated) — atop a bed of fried onions and nestled under a hearty slab of Basque blue cheese. I… might try to make this home, I have a weird instinct to drizzle a little honey on it, but maybe that’s too much.
This crab-stuffed squid dish from Bar Sport was another highlight. A creamy crab paste, tucked inside squid, grilled and finished with what I think was a garlic infused parsley oil and salt — spectacular. A warm uni cream dish speckled with roe, three smoked fish on a sesame cracker, grilled foie, txistorra (a local paprika seasoned fatty pork sausage… more on this later), and the cheesecake were all memorable here. One of the more popular places in town, we snuck in for a quick bite early (thank you, jet lag).
I’m not a huge steak person, so I’m going to comment more on the experience of eating at Bar Nestor, which probably the longest queue we encountered this trip. It’s… undeniably fun to be presented with a selection of appropriately-sized raw steaks, and be left to kill time snacking/drinking while your prime cut is being cooked in back. Paired with a bright tomato salad and blistered padrón peppers, it was a real holy trinity sort of meal to break up a day of otherwise very rich eating.
La Cuchara de San Telmo may have been my favorite overall meal of the trip. Impossibly flavorful roasted peppers (a seemingly common dish, delicious every time), some of the best octopus I’ve ever had, served over grilled collard greens, seared foie with an apple compote, suckling pig with quince paste… this is only the half of it, but I’m really striving for brevity here (believe it or not).
A quick shout out to this lamb stew from Rio-Oja. I’m typically a lamb hater, but it’s Cris’s favorite protein so I try to find versions I enjoy (marriage!) and they do certainly exist. This place had a wide selection of traditional stews that I would love to try next time, but the servings were much too large to fit in another given the snackish ethos of our brief stay in paradise.
The scallop with curried breadcrumbs from Gure Toki was so good we had to order a second. In general, a lot of the places we ate at in Bilbo had a more contemporary flare... not a deliberate choice but that’s how it worked out.
We also ate a few sit down meals, the first of which was at Arenales. The cecina with ash rind cheese and hazelnuts is something I’d make at home (PDX: hazelnut capital of America), and it was nice to try a little selection of local cheese at once. Also terrific wine — I will say it’s quite upsetting to pay 4,5€ for a glass of wine that is $17 in these here United States of America. This is maybe the most effective pillar of my ongoing “convince Cris to move to Europe” movement to date.
Finally… at Los Fueros, a house-cured anchovy salted duck with popcorn dust, soy sauce marinated anchovies atop a fried “empanada cracker”, and scallops with a miso reduction and (cider based?) foam. Using traditional Basque ingredients with clear international influences was a wonderful complement to the more storied dishes we ate elsewhere, really just fantastic food through and through.
When ever possible, we washed down mouthfuls of food with Basque cider, which is thankfully very easily accessible stateside. Low ABV, acidic, slightly sour, bone dry, and of course emblematic of the now ubiquitous funky barnyard vibes seemingly rocking every wine bar in the world right now, it’s easy to drink by the bottle. We unfortunately missed sagardotegi (cider house) season and, very narrowly, the Tolosa bean festival, so we simply have no choice but to return at some undetermined point in the future.
I left this trip with my palate so deeply satisfied… I feel like eating this way also contributes to my appreciation of the food scene in our new-ish home base. It’s hard to explain how exactly, but on the plane(s) home I was day dreaming both about coming back, and all the food I was excited to eat upon returning to Portland.
What we saw
I love mountainous terrains with moody, seasonal weather. To that end, the offseason weather we experienced was right up my alley — it was really similar to northwestern Oregon but with more sheep and beautiful historic structures, like San Juan de Gaztelugatxe4
Donostia in particular had three distinct uphill treks that paid off with views, and in one case, vermouth. Mount Igueldo, Mount Urgull, and Mount Ulia were all great ways to walk off our foie studded meals, although the latter hike is not for the faint of heart, especially on a wet day.
Between these treks and the beach vantage point from our hotel room, we were truly spoiled in the views department. My glasses broke before we even made it out of the states, and I guess I will say, I’m thankful to live in the time of Krazy glue. I’d be remiss to not mention our trip to the San Telmo Museum, in which we learnt a bit more about Basque history.
Bilbo was significantly more urban, with the beaches and coastline much further from the old city. I’m not going to roast the Guggenheim Bilbao, but I will say the well documented Bilbao effect remains puzzling and perhaps analogous to my earlier thoughts on fine dining. I’ll stop here — the former art history major in me MUST remain dormant, at all costs. The Artxanda Funicular was closed while we were in town, but we made the steep climb by foot for some urban views.
The designer in me could not possibly ignore the extremely distinct Basque typefaces we saw throughout the region. Literally everywhere, in every form: painted, printed, embossed, engraved, in lights… I think it might be a reflection of the strength of the uniquely Basque identities, cultures, traditions and autonomous/independence movements. Like... it is far from trivial to incorporate these typefaces with historic significance on so many surfaces and in such ubiquity. I will say, the synergy with other places I’ve lived with a similarly large separatist movement was palpable.
What we brought home
If you’ve endured a trip abroad with me, you likely know one of my favorite things to do is troll local grocery stores in search of anything that might be interesting to add to my pantry or distribute to friends back home. Not the fancy food boutiques (although those are nice too), but your run of the mill, middle class grocery store, when possible.
I’ve already droned on far too long, but the things I’m excited for include: lots of espelette infused goodies, some local spirits and chocolates filled with them, recently harvested Tolosa beans, pepper pastes, and a pickled guindilla puree.
What we made
A segue into the mildly existential content you undoubtedly subscribed for: I’m extremely tired of consumption as the baseline standard for Posting Online™ (the audacity — the rich, luscious irony, after subjecting you to 2000 words about relentless eating). I assure you, I am not venturing into travel blogging, this one-off5 post was irresistible given the culinary reputation of the Basque Country. But more than detail what I enjoyed, I hope to document how it’s informed what I’ve created, a gargantuan ask from a person with Canadian sensibilities and debilitating imposter syndrome… but alas, we must try. Growth! That’s the whole point, right?
It’s easy to imagine how the aforementioned txistorra aligns to North American palates… a fattier, sweeter, smokier variant of chorizo, it’s delicious all on its own. My pizza-rotted brain was immediately reminded of some of the pepperoni, Calabrian chili, honey pizzas we’ve been making all summer, so I felt compelled to try merging the two connected streams of thought. This meant awaiting a relatively rain-free day in the balmy Portland winter to roll out the pizza oven and get cooking. Dear reader, it was a long six days, but I’m happy to report it was worth the wait.
It’s fairly easy to find txistorra in your local fancy grocery store, as well as pickled guindilla peppers, and Ossau-Iraty which is a kind of nutty sheep’s milk cheese. I removed the sausage from its casing, quickly pan fried it with some additional espelette pepper, and topped our standard dough and sauce with the sausage and equal parts Basque cheese and fresh mozz. The pickled peppers joined the party after the pizza was taken out of the oven… when summer comes back around I’d like to try a variant with fresh padrón peppers. The resulting pizza was reminiscent of a classic pepperoni & pepperoncini pie, but much softer with subtle sweet and smoky notes, and a little funk from the cheese. I think there’s a very good chance it will be in our rotation next year.
Next... as you probably expected. The big one. Basque cheesecake, one of my all time favorite sweets, neck and neck with a perfectly baked canelé (which makes a lot of sense if you think about their matching caramelized custard shells). After a nice meal, served with a glass of sherry, can’t be beat. I was pleased to learn that the cheesecakes I had in-situ were quite similar to the highest quality ones I’ve had stateside, the best of which has actually been in a local Portland restaurant that I wholeheartedly recommend. The main distinction was a subtle depth of flavor, a creamier tang I can only attribute to characteristics of the local dairy products.
I tested three variations at home: an attempt to capture the tang with a homemade cultured cream (it feels like “fermenting dairy” is an important culinary milestone to have reached), a coconut milk twist, and a hojicha infused cake to add another dimension of roasted flavor. It did not surprise me to learn that Basque cheesecake has already had a moment in Japan. They were all... quite good. Really, if you care for cheesecake at all, you should trying making this at home, it’s very forgiving. At the end of the day, it’s hard to compete with the classic flavor profile; the cultured cream take served with a Basque cider-honey reduction, a drizzle of olive oil, and a pinch of flaky sea salt was the fan favorite. I want to do one more test bake, but here’s a sketch of my humble take on a classic recipe. It will also be in the zine I’m about to briefly discuss.
Lastly, another in my series of silly micro zines6, a little 1-pager shout out to our favorite bites with the aforementioned cheesecake recipe on the reverse. I couldn’t not appropriate a Basque typeface for my own vain interests — the designer lives on! I have a special interest in developing more of these little food adjacent zines for a project that is slowly in the works. To that end, if anyone is interested in a little collaboration (format is: front cover, back cover, six pages, full letter sized poster or double sided letter sized poster) I am happy to do the design work / recipe testing / research & writing or what have you, you know how to reach me.
Yours in food coma recovery,
Remi
P.S. Off topic, but I read Bel Canto on the way home because I’m obsessed with Ann Patchett right now... good book, invoked memories of the strange feeling of finding comfort while in an objectively horrific situation (home life during the early pandemic days).
My favorite part about the proposal lead up was my mother, upon seeing a picture of the intentionally burnt cheesecake, expressing dismay and asking if I had time to bake another one
‘Bilbao’ in Basque — While the bilingual “Donostia-San Sebastián” and “Vitoria-Gasteiz” were commonly spotted, “Bilbo-Bilbao” was not… perhaps due to the visual similarity of the two. This footnote is a great and unnecessary illustration of my typo anxiety. Also I’m now pondering the different ordering of Basque-Spanish, and Spanish-Basque terms in the aforementioned bilingual Capital names…
According to Anthony Bourdain, “a little bit, often” is a translation of a Basque proverb… I haven’t found reference to this saying anywhere else so take it with a grain (or several) of salt, but the sentiment definitely applies
Apparently some notable Game of Thrones scenes were filmed here, if that’s your thing
Ok, you can probably also expect something similar when I’m in Japan for a few weeks in April